'God Is An Imaginary Friend' billboard to be displayed in Colorado Springs, the mecca for evangelical Christians

God is an imaginary friend

God is an imaginary friendColorado Springs is, in the words of National Public Radio, a "mecca" for evangelical Christians.  Focus on the Family (founded by James Dobson), the New Life Church (founded by Ted Haggard) and at least 100 Christian organizations called it home in 2005.

Dubbed "the Evangelical Vatican," the Colorado Springs Independent featured a front page story in August 2010 on the difficulties that skeptics and non-believers encountered in Colorado Springs, saying that they were fearful of making their beliefs known to co-workers and friends.

In this environment, a billboard from the Colorado Coalition of Reason is creating controversy before it's even gone up.  The sign reads "God Is An Imaginary Friend — Choose Reality, It Will Be Better for All of Us."  The billboard will be displayed for four weeks at the intersection of I-25 and Garden of the Gods.  Groff Schroeder, a member of the Colorado Coalition of Reason hopes that the display will encourage conversation and also help non-believers know that they are not alone.

KKTV Channel 11 News interviewed people on the street about their opinions.  "I think it's a crazy idea.  Even the dollar bills says 'In God We Trust,'" one man told the reporter.  "So he's not an imaginary friend.  Even the U.S. government recognizes him as a being."

A woman feared that children's minds will be influenced.  "If a kid reads it," she told KKTV's reporter, "they might look at it in a different way.  Then they're going to question their parents.  It's not appropriate for someone else to decide what their kids get to see on a big billboard like that."

The group is putting up two other billboards in the Denver area.


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D. Beeksma

One of the growing crowd of American "nones" herself, Deborah is a prolific writer who finds religion, spirituality and the impact of belief (and non-belief) on culture inspiring, fascinating and at times, disturbing. She hosts the God Discussion show and handles the site's technical work. Her education and background is in business, ecommerce and law.

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  • http://www.houseofbetazed.com Mriana

    You know, that first dude's reaction was nothing but citing authority- "if the U.S. Gov. says God is real, then God is real." I couldn't believe someone actually used such an excuse to believe in something. I wonder if he'd believe in the tooth fairy and Santa if the U.S. Gov. said they are real? The second person was unreal too, in that she demands unquestioning obedience from children. That is ridiculous too, because then children will never learn how to think, much less think for themselves and make their own decisions as adults. Children need to learn how to think so that they can make responsible decisions and choices as adults, even if it does mean questioning authority. We have checks and balances, as well as the First Amendment, in order to keep our gov. from having too much control. If people don't question authority, then they could lose their First Amendment rights just by not using them.